Fort Ord (abandoned military base)

Where do I even start? This is easily the most amazing place I've ever had the pleasure of visiting and/or photographing. It literally blew me away.

Long-story-short, I went on a little weekend getaway to Monterey Bay with a friend of mine. She used to go to school up there. She says "hey, you like abandoned places, there's an abandoned military base by my old college." I'm like "ok", but I was thinking it would probably be super lame and/or impossible to get in to. Boy was I wrong...

We roll up to the campus, and immediately I'm in shock. There are abandoned buildings EVERYWHERE. As far as the eye can see almost. I didn't even know where to start shooting! The most amazing part of it is there is a fully-functioning college amidst all this abandoned military infrastructure. Here's this super modern library, right next to a bunch of defunct barracks. Seriously unbelievable. Ok, let's get on with the photos.

1.)

2.) Inside one of the buildings pictured above. Seriously pitch black in there, I was very nervous at first but I got more and more comfortable with it.

We went back twice. I would have needed a LOT more time than that to explore everything. Another thing that shocked me about this place was the fact that we were basically allowed to roam free, no one hassled us the entire time, and there were security cars rolling around all over the place. It was like I died and went to urban exploration heaven. Haha.

BIG H wrote in post #8568797All wonderful pics. I like #3 and #4 most - nice processing. This place needs more exploration

Thanks! It's actually a fairly well-known place out here. There are a couple of companies that organize paintball games in the old WWII barracks. There were kids playing paintball in there the day I was in there taking pictures, I was sort of shocked about that. There is or was a prison somewhere on this base, and they used to let you play paintball in there too. If you search around on flickr you'll see lots of sets of photos taken from this place.

I like the use of negative space on the right, the symmetry of the window pane, and the random but at the same time predictable pattern of the broken glasses. The contrast between the dark room and the bright outdoors is dramatic.

That's the beauty, you don't have to be good. In fact, Since you are in San Diego and want a free day of play during Jungle Island's (Lake Elsinore) big game hit me up via PM. I know the guy running it

3Honu wrote in post #8580826That's the beauty, you don't have to be good. In fact, Since you are in San Diego and want a free day of play during Jungle Island's (Lake Elsinore) big game hit me up via PM. I know the guy running it

socalrailfan wrote in post #11983636The damage is a shame! My grandfather worked there for many many years. Hopefully I'll get to stop by there next week when I'm in town. Thanks for sharing.

Heh! Resurrecting an old thread! But, our saying there in the area used to be that "The sun never shines over Fort Ord"...'course as you see it does tend to be an overcast place, but this was also during the 'Nam "stuff".

COOKIES DISCLAIMER: By using this site you agree that some cookies will be stored on your browser. For unlogged users we store one session id cookie. For registered members we store (in addition to login session cookie) only cookies that are essential for required functionality. We do not store any personal tracking data in cookies or other browsers' data storage methods.